New Build party wall noise issue

Granglio

What is your neighbour experiencing? If they have a similar issue it may be worth getting them on side.

shadow_1

Granglio wrote: »

What is your neighbour experiencing? If they have a similar issue it may be worth getting them on side.

Ha.... apparently they don't hear anything what I've mentioned above. Sounds perfect to them

andre_xs

I'm not an expert, but to me it sounds a bit weird. My wife is highly sensitive to neighbour's noise, so when we looked at houses we always did a noise test (asking the neighbours whether either we could come in and make some noise, or just them speaking loudly / turning on the TV).

You seem to have a cavitiy party wall, and in all houses we've seen with a cavity wall there was basically zero noise from neighbours, even if they've been really loud. And some of them were older builds, so I doubt that they had good soundproofing insulation between them.

So my suspicion would be more along the lines that it's not that much a poor insulation, but instead that the walls are actually connected somewhere / somehow, creating 'sound-bridges" where the sound can travel through to your wall (and, in an extreme case, can use your wall as a 'speaker').

Often these walls are held on distance with metal anchors, but not sure they're sufficient for sound transmission. Or maybe their toilet waste pipe goes into the cavity, touching your wall... (just speculating).

Good luck anyway!

Fire_Fox

Presumably Barratt Homes are claiming to have complied with the sound insulation section of Building Regulations? Current and previous BRegs can be found on the Planning Portal website. Building Control at your local council should have more information on what was proposed and signed off.

If Building Control get involved, maybe Environmental Health at your local council would too, and they have test equipment. Long shot probably.

Communicate with everyone in writing (e-mail or letter) so you form a paper trail. If by letter send them Signed For and keep the Post Office receipt.

shadow_1

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Presumably Barratt Homes are claiming to have complied with the sound insulation section of Building Regulations? Current and previous BRegs can be found on the Planning Portal website. Building Control at your local council should have more information on what was proposed and signed off.

If Building Control get involved, maybe Environmental Health at your local council would too, and they have test equipment. Long shot probably.

Communicate with everyone in writing (e-mail or letter) so you form a paper trail. If by letter send them Signed For and keep the Post Office receipt.

Barratt Homes are claiming they have complied with the sound insulation section of Building Regulations by testing one section of the party wall where we haven't raised any concerns about, only in the living room and above this room. Keep on refusing to deal with it any further as NHBC have closed the case and ignoring the fact they haven't tested the impacted areas.

Unfortunately I've spoken to Building Control at my local council and they won't get involved because the new build house is covered by NHBC who look after the inspections of construction stages...

shadow_1

andre_xs wrote: »

I'm not an expert, but to me it sounds a bit weird. My wife is highly sensitive to neighbour's noise, so when we looked at houses we always did a noise test (asking the neighbours whether either we could come in and make some noise, or just them speaking loudly / turning on the TV).

You seem to have a cavitiy party wall, and in all houses we've seen with a cavity wall there was basically zero noise from neighbours, even if they've been really loud. And some of them were older builds, so I doubt that they had good soundproofing insulation between them.

So my suspicion would be more along the lines that it's not that much a poor insulation, but instead that the walls are actually connected somewhere / somehow, creating 'sound-bridges" where the sound can travel through to your wall (and, in an extreme case, can use your wall as a 'speaker').

Often these walls are held on distance with metal anchors, but not sure they're sufficient for sound transmission. Or maybe their toilet waste pipe goes into the cavity, touching your wall... (just speculating).

Good luck anyway!

Yep I'm aware this could be the case of walls being connected somewhere or toilet waste pipe goes through the cavity. Problem is trying to prove this because Barratt Homes or NHBC won't listen to a word I say anymore without evidence it seems.

andre_xs

> Of course the sound test passed because we cannot hear them in our kitchen, only place in the house that is acceptable with noise tolerance.

That's curious. If it is a general issue with the whole wall, then certain types of noises (e.g. loud speaking, music) should pose a problem in all rooms similarly. As an extreme example, if you can hear them speaking quitely in their bathroom, but not at all when they speak more loudly in their living room, then it seems that the problem is more local. If not (same noise for you everywhere), then maybe it's just the way it is built, and the fact that others don't report a problem might be because they have a very different noise tolerance (I had that a few times that people said their house/flat is sooo quiet and when visiting them, I could clearly hear the neighbours talk through the wall...)

Are you on good terms with your neighbours? If so, I'd suggest the following:
- A friend / your partner go to their place and knock on the wall in all the different rooms at different places. You stay at your place and listen and see whether it's the same loudness everywhere. If it is markedly louder somewhere, you may have potentially found a source.
- You go to your neighbours and ask somebody to be loud in YOUR appartment and see whether the neighbour's place is indeed quiet - or whether they actually have the same noise from you but simply don't mind...
- If possible, actually visit the houses opposite you and see whether they indeed don't have the problem, e.g. that they don't hear the flushing of the toilet.

sxd901

Find out if the house was subject to sound testing or whether 'robust details' were used. These are standard approved details that are registered with Robust Details Ltd and remove the requirement for a sound test. I would have thought Barrats would use this system. You may then be able to contact Robust Details to see if they can visit and assess.

Robb33

OP, did you ever get to the bottom of what was causing this?

I've also had noise transfer issues through a cavity party wall (2015 build) which I'm trying to get to the bottom of. Most of mine is impact noise though!

shadow_1

Robb33 wrote: »

OP, did you ever get to the bottom of what was causing this?

I've also had noise transfer issues through a cavity party wall (2015 build) which I'm trying to get to the bottom of. Most of mine is impact noise though!

Unfortunately Barratt Homes aren't budging. Keep on hitting a brick wall.

Looks like I'll have to fund sound proofing the wall now.